What’s The Most Popular TV Show On Netflix? The Answer Might Surprise You

My apologies for the clickbait-y headline, but even I’m surprised by this news. You might think that Netflix’s original series like Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards, which combine the high and lowbrow with equal measure and manage to garner critical praise and plenty of awards, might be the streaming service’s most popular television offerings. Alas, you’d be wrong!

On Monday, CBS chief research officer David Poltrack announced at the UBS Global Media Conference that while Netflix’s two biggest original series certainly have been successful, they pale in comparison to network-produced offerings on the service, particularly The Blacklist and NCIS. Per UPROXX:

He found that Netflix subscribers are spending about 1.1 billion hours a year watching the service’s five original programs. Compare that to the 800 million hours they spend watching NCIS reruns on Netflix. In fact, according to Poltrack, Netflix subscribers only spent 6.6 percent of their time watching Netflix originals.

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. (I recall the massive shockwaves sent into the streaming ether the day my friends realized Law and Order was no longer available to stream on Netflix.) Considering that The Blacklist, NCIS, and Once Upon a Time are some of the most watched shows on network television, it’s a pretty obvious realization that they’d also be extremely popular online. Of course, I think this is a case of the Prestige TV Bubble: just because those of us who write obsessively about television are consumed by offerings like OITNB, House of Cards, or even cable dramas like True Detective and Fargo, it’s a good thing to remember that the shows dour dramas winning the most awards are still not reaching the audiences as shows on the major networks, particularly police procedurals like the NCIS franchise.

 

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